The National Contexts of Post-national Citizenship

Abstract

The article contributes to the literature on the changing concept of citizenship in the process of globalisation. It sets out from the thesis that the classic concepts of citizenship, which are linked to the nation state, are slowly but steadily losing their monopoly on explaining the relationship between individuals, the political community and government. Based on a theoretical discussion of the new models of citizenship, the authors seek to identify the elements of ‘post-national’ citizenship. The main research goal of the analysis is to discover the conditions in which elements of post-national citizenship are most likely to occur. The analysis is based on aggregated individual (survey) data (from the ESS 2008 and the EVS 2008) and macro contextual data on European Union countries. On the macro (country) level, the authors conduct a hierarchical cluster analysis and crisp set QCA and make the following findings. First, two groups of countries are formed: (a) a fairly homogeneous group of six ‘post-national’ citizenship countries; and (b) a more heterogeneous group of classic citizenship countries. Second, ‘post-national’ citizenship is to be expected in countries in which the following conditions are combined: on the one hand, secularised and post-industrial societies with less emphasis on a knowledge society, and on the other hand, societies with a stable national status where knowledge is important.